Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (HSDC) has been named as a recipient of the 2011 Joyce Award by The Joyce Foundation.  The honor includes a monetary grant, as well as the prestige and recognition that comes with being not only the only dance recipient, but the only arts organization in Illinois to receive the award this year.

The $50,000 award will aid in the upcoming cross-company collaboration with Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet.  The first performance of this new partnership will be during HSDC’s Summer Series at the Harris Theater this May with the Chicago premiere of King’s Following the Subtle Current Upstream.  The HSDC/LINES collab will ultimately produce an entirely new work from King, his first to premiere in Chicago in over ten years with the San Fran-based company and Chicago troupe sharing the stage in 2012.

“It’s really fun for me to set something up and have it follow through,” says Artistic Director Glenn Edgerton from HSDC’s West Loop studios.  The idea came about while Edgerton was watching King rehearse his company.  “I was fascinated by what he was getting out of his dancers,” he says.  The differences in the choreographic styles and the type of dancers had him intrigued.  “They are long, ethereal creatures; my dancers are very earthy and grounded.   I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to put these two groups together.”  And King agreed.  The two companies had a short workshop and started the socialization process of getting to know each other.  Eventually a place will be decided for a residency where King and the dancer will work on creating the new piece.

Congratulations to the critically-acclaimed company!  “The recognition is really terrific,” Edgerton says.  “With our Israeli program coming up, the Summer Series with Alonzo, then that snowballs in to next season…it’s exciting.  We have a lot happening.”

Here is an inside look at how they did some of the crazy cool effects in the movie Black Swan.  Just click on the movie poster.

I was going to say that Portman deserves the Oscar if she really did all of those fouettes…but, alas, it was ABT’s Sarah Lane.

*Hat tip:  Pointe Magazine and kmredmond.

I found a new video to add to my fouette obsession.  Thanks to Calvin Kitten for introducing me (via web video) to his friend Lali Kandelaki, who dances for the State Ballet of Georgia, Tblisi.

After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I watched it again and squealed (out loud, at work).  She is…amazing!

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXA6DuzWwvw]

Photo by William Frederking.

Ah, the teen years.  Fifteen in human years marks that anxious, often awkward time when growing pains takes on a whole new meaning.  Just shy of being able to drive and having your first real taste of independence and precariously balanced between impending adulthood, but still having to sit at the kiddie table.  In dance years, a company turning fifteen (especially in these economic times), is a time to celebrate your longevity, creativity and sheer perseverance.  To make it this far, you’ve tackled a million challenges — creative, economic, administrative, collaborative…your own kind of growing pains — and somehow remained on the cutting edge of your art form.  This weekend, The Dance COLECTive (TDC), lead by the inexhaustible Margi Cole, will present their 15th anniversary concert, Balancing Act, at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts (check out the lobby at the theater for a TDC flashback timeline created by the dancers).  The group consists of Cole, plus eight female dancers and two apprentices.  Balancing Act showcases a new collaborative duet by Cole and Jeff Hancock, a dance for 10 by Cole, a new piece from Joe Goode alum Liz Burritt and a piece Cole created for six young gentlemen from  the Menz Dance group at New Trier High School.  The title reflects the necessary hat-juggling it takes for a small dance company to make it fifteen years.  “Just surviving in this day and age is really about balancing things,” says Cole.  “The concert has a weird balance.  It’s kind of teetering here and there in its subject matter.”

RB chatted with Cole over brunch in Lakeview about the upcoming concert and what keeps her going.

RB:  Fifteen years – congrats!  How did The Dance COLEctive start?  Why did you decide to start a company?

MC: My friends and I were self-producing work out of our own pockets and I had some knowledge of how to do a lot of the administrative work that needed to be done, because of the work I was doing at the Dance Center.  I knew how to make a budget, I knew how to write a grant, press release…I knew how to do all that stuff.  I thought if I could put together an organization that could sort of work as an umbrella where there would be a kitty of cash that wasn’t out of our pockets, but that sort of sat on the side that we could use to produce work and…it would give me the opportunity to choreograph and to help my friends and neighbors have their work produced.

RB:  Was it called the Dance COLEctive?

MC:  It was called The Dance COLEctive right from the start.  The original mission was to support emerging artists.  The mission has changed a couple of times since then, like I think any organization should.  But that’s how it started.

RB:  When did it switch over to your choreography?

MC:   As time passed, it was more cost-effective to just use me.  I gained a little more confidence as I went along.  I think as I got to be a better teacher…that sort of helped me refine or define or begin to narrow what my aesthetic was.  It made more sense for me to do more of my own work.

RB:  What would you say the hardest part about keeping the company going for this long has been?

MC:  Not getting burned out, I guess.

RB:  So, how do you avoid it?

MC:  What keeps me from getting burned out is the teaching and mentoring I get to do with the people that I’m working with.  Their desire and dedication and watching them grow over a long period of time…that’s what keeps me going.  The hardest thing probably is juggling time between being the artist Margi Cole and the paperwork Margi Cole…being the administrator.  One of my strengths has always been the “administrivia”,  so I did a lot of it because I knew how.

RB:  Most of the people I’ve talked to that run smaller companies have said that the hardest thing is the administrative stuff, because they didn’t have your background going into it.

MC:  It’s about balancing it.  Going in the studio and being able to just focus on my work and not thinking about “I’ve got to send an email to so-and-so” or “I’ve got to finish putting labels on the mailing I just got done”.  Of course, the economy has had an impact on us in terms of being able to support somebody in an administrative role.  In a lot of ways we’ve grown, but in some we’ve had to go backwards.  We’re at the end of a long-range planning period that went on for three years.  We’ve increased our visibility a lot.  We had mechanisms in place to do that, but in terms of budget, it’s been really…I think in the grand scheme of things, I’m probably in better shape than a lot of people.  It’s boring, but I think I’m really good at managing the money I have.

RB:  What are some of your favorite accomplishments?

MC:  Seeing where some of the people are that started with me early on…knowing what they’re doing now is really great.  Being able to go and collaborate with those people and knowing that I had a hand in helping them get where they are is really satisfying.  The Chicago Dance Maker’s Forum grant certainly was a big accomplishment for me and the work “Written On the Body” – that was at our 10 year anniversary.  Knee surgery and my recovery from that and my continued adventures trying to make sure I have solo work…(that’s) something that I’m really proud of and excited about.

RB:  Let’s talk about Balancing Act.  You’re collaborating with Jeff (Hancock) again…

MC:  Yes, collaborating with Jeff again, which is great.  Jeff and I had such a great time collaborating (on IMe).  I learned a lot when I worked with him and I didn’t feel like we were finished.  When I approached him, he agreed.  We’ve been having a really good time working on this duet.  It’s all about sabotage and how we really sabotage ourselves in love and life.  We have a systematic way in which we do it and we repeat it.  So we’ve been really analyzing that…talking a lot about that and trying to explore the humor and the sadness in that.  Jeff’s background is really different than mine, which is fun.  His way of thinking is a lot more systematic than mine, in terms of beginning to end.  I allow myself to go down that road, which I don’t do very often and he allows him self to say “I don’t really know if this is the beginning”.  We have that give and take, so it’s good.  It puts both of us in a really uncomfortable place and we’re talking about such an uncomfortable topic and really analyzing it, (laughing) so it’s been fun.

RB:   Tell me about Menz Dance from New Trier High School.

MC:  Chris Rutt, he teaches at New Trier HS, he participated in my summer program.  (I think that would be another thing I’m proud of, my summer teaching.)  He came and did my workshop.  We were talking while this was going on and he was telling me about these guys that he teaches at New Trier.  I said, “Wow!  I would love to make a dance for a group of guys.  I haven’t done that in a long time.  That would be really fun.”  He said, “It would be really great for you to come and teach.  They need someone like you who has real balls and chutzpah to come in here.”  That’s a real compliment.  So I went and I did two weeks of classes.  He has 33 boys that get together every day and dance!  I went and I taught and I managed to keep the attention of all these teenage boys.  It was great.  He wanted me to make a dance, so I ended up working with six boys from the Menz Dance.  I’m in love with them.  Their integrity is off the charts.  The way in which they work…they’re enthusiastic, they’re open, they contribute… I adore them.  Because they worked so hard and I’m so proud of them, I wanted them to have the opportunity to do the work…give them the opportunity to perform. They’re rough around the edges, which I love.  I thrive on it.  At the end of every rehearsal we’d get in a circle and everyone would put their fist in.  They’d go…”1, 2, 3…Team Cole!”  I’m driving back from Winnetka to rehearsal and I’m thinking “Team Cole!” the whole time.

RB:  And Liz Burritt…

MC:  She’s the person I worked with to create “Supergirl”.  She is amazing and wonderful.  We’re so lucky to have her here in Chicago.  She works a lot with text and that’s an arena I’ve been really interested in working in.  When I’m asking people to create work on the company, I’m always looking for things so I can challenge my dancers, so that I can be challenged in the process in terms of being a party to what’s going on and watching what’s happening and learning from that.  She’s really…she’s fabulous.  She’s made a new quintet.  There’s singing; there’s text.  It’s not a happy dance.

RB:  And you created another piece for ten dancers…

MC:  It’s for ten dancers, because there’s power in numbers.  How often do I get to work with ten dancers?  It’s a luxury.  I read the book Blink.  The bottom line is about how we make conscious and unconscious decisions and how, most of the time, the decisions we make are rooted in our unconscious choice-making…and that’s where all of our best choices come from.  You should read it!  (RB is currently on Chapter 2)  I took a lot of the ideas from the book, where he talks about how people make choices and analyzing.  I impose them in kind of a literal way on the dancers.  For example, I gave them assignments that we had to do and I imposed a time limit, so they didn’t have a lot of time to make choices.  That was really frustrating for them.  They did not like it.  There was something in the book about certain emotions and how they trigger the conscious and unconscious on this scale and how they read people based on this scale.  It was based on body language and facial expressions and tone and all of these things.  There were 20 emotions.  They (the dancers) had to make a list of 20 emotions and then they had to assign whether the emotion was masculine or feminine.  I wanted them to make a microcosm for each of the emotions.  Then I put them together in groups and duets and asked them to have a conversation with each other..to rub the material together to have a conversation.  And then I addressed what their relationship would be…either they’d be circling each other or one was following the other or one was going after the other…so they had these different relationships they had to impose.  We generated a really quirky set of duets out of that (process) that I love.  We call them the conversation duets.  After that, we used a lot of the material and we did these things that we called “speed dates”, where we put them together and they took little chunks of material and they had conversations with the other person and they had to it with each person in the room in only four minutes.  The material was the same, but when it got mixed and mingled with another person’s, you kind of got a rendition of it. There’s lots of repeated material, but it’s sort of torqued through how it gets manipulated.  It’s called Pull Taught.  There’s lots of tension.

The Dance COLEctive:  Balancing Act

Ruth Page Center for the Arts, January 20-22 at 8 pm

Ticket information:  www.dancecolective.com, or call 773.604.8452

I’m pretty sure this isn’t what Shakira was singing about…
Last night at the grocery store, I squatted down to get a Toblerone from the bottom shelf — don’t judge! Chocolate IS on my “diet” — and couldn’t get back up.  For real.  I normally put my weight on my left leg, since all of my injuries occurred on my right side (knee, hip, foot and back), but I recently strained my left “cheek” (and dare I say, gricilis muscle) while diving during a Kinect beach volleyball game (yes, I realize you don’t need to dive, but the spirit of competition was all up in me) and the left side wasn’t cooperating.

Mortifying.  I slowly creeked back up, hoping that no one noticed the old lady trying to get the candy.  The worst part?  I completely forgot to get the Toblerone.

Awash in new year’s resolutions, January is a time to reflect, but also designate areas to focus on improving.  Eat healthier, quit smoking, work out more, get organized are some of the most tried and true resolutions (whether they work or not) around.  Trying to be a better “you” or transforming into your perfect self.  Dancers are always trying to better themselves, to become, through their art, a more perfect version of themselves as well as transforming into the character the role requests.

An interesting and terrifying example of this type of transformation is Natalie Portman’s portrayal of an obsessive and unstable ballet dancer in Black Swan.  RB finally had the chance to see the disturbing, yet beautiful movie last week.  I don’t normally go to “scary” movies — and this one did provoke a few nightmares — but I recommend this one, if only for the actors’ performances and the Tchaikovsky-laden soundtrack.  At times it was difficult to tell what was real and what wasn’t, which added to the general feel of dementia, coupled with the brilliant camera shots and editing made me wonder if I was going crazy too.  (No comments on that, please.)

Portman’s virginal/naive Nina provides the ultimate (if extreme) balance to Mila Kunis’ wild and passionate Lily.  Both actors trained hard before donning their leotards for the cameras (notably losing approx 20 lbs each, which seems about right).  Portman’s port de bras and basic positions looked good and with some of the camera shots she really needed to know what she was doing , but Kunis’ arm were hideous.  Portman’s dancer double (ABT soloist Sarah Lane) doesn’t get enough credit, in my opinion.  Unless you are reading a dance magazine or blogs, you rarely, if ever, hear her name mentioned.  (*Note to Portman:  if you win any awards, it would be proper to acknowledge Lane.)

There were a few things that annoyed me…namely, the back tattoo on Lily.  What ballet company would let her go on stage during Swan Lake with that showing?   The music box ballerina in Nina’s childlike bedroom rotated backwards.  It drove me crazy until, on further reflection, I realized it was supposed to…alluding to her unwinding, her mind unraveling.

Although the characters and plot are clichéd and pushed to the extremes, I thought the casting was spot on.  Vincent Cassel was, as usual, slimy.  Barbara Hershey psychotic and demanding and really, who plays a better crazy than Winona Ryder?  I understand that some are upset that the arts world is again being portrayed as crazy and self-destructive.  Black Swan does delve into the darker side of creative obsession, but in its defense, it’s a movie people(!) and I found it disturbing, but entertaining.  Plus, if it makes an audience member want to go see a live performance of Swan Lake or anything, I’m all for it.

*Spoiler Alert (of sorts, it’s in the commercial shots):  The scene where Nina transforms on stage during her menage into fouette sequence, literally into a swan by growing feathers and sprouting wings is worth the price of admission.  RB had goose (or  swan?) bumps!  Of course, the red eyes, score and creeptastic sound effects helped too.

The best line of the movie was when the Artistic Director asks Benjamin Millepied’s character, “Would you *bleep* that girl?”  His response is a “hell no! are you crazy?” look that got chuckles from the audience, who by the time RB saw it, already knew Millepied and Portman are engaged in real life and she is pregnant with his baby.

RB received a number of awesome xmas presents this year (Superman pajamas, more Nutcrackers for my growing army, slippers! and an antique letter opener), but this just might be the fave:  Jennifer Homan’s Apollo’s Angels:  A History of Ballet.  Thanks Mark!

Read the Washington Post book review here and the NY Times review here.
I can’t wait to start reading!

In the end, RB lost by 7 votes in the Dance News and Criticism category, but we tied for 5th overall.  Thanks to Nichelle at Dance Advantage for conducting the contest and helping all of the blogs gain recognition and readership.  Congrats to loveDANCEmore for edging us out by 1% and Henrik at Tights and Tiaras for winning overall favorite dance blog!  (You can see all of the contest results here.)

Although a little disappointing, the contest was a fun way to get the word out about RB.  Again, many thanks to everyone that voted.  On to 2011…

I want to thank everyone that voted for RB in Dance Advantage’s Top Dance Blog of 2010 contest. The race was very close in all categories. I’m pretty sure I didn’t win, but your support and kind words mean the world to me.

Have a happy and safe New Year!

Wow – what a great year for RB!  Tons of great dance performances, fun with family and friends, our one year anniversary and now, we’re in the running for Top Dance blog of 2010 (you can vote here)!  Say what?  It’s true…and I do mean “we”, because RB wouldn’t work or be worth it without you, the readers.

It’s difficult to pick highlights, because I’ve truly enjoyed listening, watching and talking with everyone.  It’s amazing to look back and see all of the talented artists that were kind enough to offer their time and insights to little ole me 🙂  Some of these include:  Nacho Duato (really!), Aszure Barton, Victor Quijada, HSDC resident choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo (sigh), tapper Lane Alexander, ABT’s Daniil Simkin, Wendy Ellis Sommes, Cheryl Mann, and Ashley Wheater and some of the Joffrey dancers (Matthew Adamczyk, Amber Neumann, Mauro Villanueva).

RB covered the Chicago Dancing Festival, Dance for Life, The Dance COLEctive, The Seldoms,  Thodos Dance Chicago and dabbled a bit with reviews/critiques for Joffrey, HSDC, River North and ABT (and more).  We also celebrated some milestone anniversaries including Zephyr Dance, discovered some baby ballerinas, paid reverance to some beautiful dancers who retired and continued my obsession with fouettes.

Some things lined up for the new year are:  a chat with artistic director Margi Cole on the DanceCOLEctive’s 15th anniversary, pick the brain of TimeOut Chicago dance editor Zac Whittenburg, more inside scoop on Joffrey and HSDC, and hoping to catch up with The Seldom’s artistic director Carrie Hanson  (who had a really busy and joyful year) and make some new friends and connections with other companies and artists in the Chicago dance community.  On my wish list:  Gail Kalver, Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, Ohad Naharin, Molly Shanahan, Valerie Robin, Meredith Dincolo, Ron DeJesus, Scott Silberstein, ABT’s Marcelo Gomez and Jose Manuel Carrena and anyone else that is willing to talk to me really.  Oh, did I mention that I will be interviewing…wait for it…ANN REINKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (Can you tell I’m totally geeked about this one?)

RB got a new logo designed by Yoolia Design.  Thanks to Julia who also surprised RB with an entire line of merchandise!!  Also thank you to Farrah Malik Williams, Glenn Edgerton and Taryn Kaschock Russell of HSDC; Eric Eatherly and Beth Silverman of The Silverman Group; Christopher Clinton Conway, Ashley Wheater and Sarah Scutchfield at the Joffrey Ballet and Jill Chuckerman of JAC Communications for their help and support.

This year RB also did some freelance work for Joffrey’s blog J Pointe, got her first assignment for Dance Magazine (!!!), took a writing class (verdict is still out…final paper is due on Sunday), and agreed to collaborate with Dance for Life founder Keith Elliot and lighting/production guru Margaret Nelson writing a book on the history of dance in Chicago.  Whew!

Happy Holidays and the best wishes to everyone for the new year!  Thank you for your support.

Gratefully,

RB (aka Vicki)